Back in October Pat McGinty of McGinty Motorcars was kind enough to give me a tour of his building at 1041-43 Washington Street in Reading. The structure sits on the east end of Washington near the foot of City Park.

In 1882 the deed for this property was transfered to a George Schroeder, who died in 1908 and left the property to his son of the same namesake.

1913 Atlas of Reading shows the property owned by Geo. G. B. Schroeder slider comparison with 2024 Google satellite view

Around 1910 Schroeder had the back industrial building built as a horse-bound trolley depot for the city of Reading. Schroeder owned the property up until 1919, so he likely had a lease agreement with the city. Here they would have stored and performed maintenance on the trolley bodies themselves. The horses were kept in a stable around the corner on Mulberry street. The 1913 published “Atlas of Reading” above shows the property as it looked before the depot was constructed, even though it had already been completed by the time the atlas published.

With the advent of the electric trolley the need for the building waned within a decade, and the property was sold to Oldsmobile Company in July of 1920. Oldsmobile, which was headquartered in Michigan, first opened its local sales branch at 909 Penn Street in 1919 and quickly followed by opening a service location at 1038-40 Court Street. These buildings quickly proved inadequate, so the old trolley depot was acquired.

An August 18th, 1920 Reading Times article reported that Oldsmobile had obtained a permit to construct the Washington street facing portion of the building into a two-story salesroom and the back depot portion as a garage to hold their automobile inventory. It doesn’t appear that the showroom ended up occupying both floors, as by March 1921 the Times was advertising an apartment for rent in the second story on the building. It is still an apartment to this day.

Click here to see an example of the type of vehicle which was sold in this building in 1927.

Oldsmobile ceased advertising this location by 1932 as the Reading Eagle listed United Auto Sales and Service Company at the property. By the 1940s the property became a paid parking garage.

In 1947 the building was purchased and occupied by Howard W. Frantz & Sons, Inc, which according to the Reading Eagle did sheet metal work, roofing, and furnace repair and supply.

1965 saw another ownership transfer to a Contractors Service Company Inc., which operated a contracting company out of the building until selling it to Action Home Development and Investment Corp in 1977. They sold it to Anthony Fischetti in 1986. I’ll leave you with the final piece of this building’s history from an excerpt from McGintyMotorcars.com:

In 2006 Fred and Shelly Baker purchased the property [from Fischetti] and from 2006-2008 worked extensively to restore, renovate and upgrade the building to bring it back to its full potential that we see today. In April of 2022, Pat and Courtney McGinty purchased the property with the vision and dream of starting McGinty Motorcars.

The McGinty’s have sold vintage and used cars with final destinations all across the United States. Their inventory is always rotating, but you can be sure there is always something interesting to see if you visit them. Give them a follow on facebook, youtube, instagram, or tiktok to see what they have in stock today.